Same Old Story

The rapper T.I. is reputedly one of the top figures in the game. Last Saturday he was scheduled to receive the "Best CD of the Year" award at BET Hip-Hop awards in Atlanta. Unfortunately, he never made it to the show because he was arrested earlier in the day for possession of three unregistered machine guns and two silencers and for possession of firearms by a convicted felon. "When a dog bites a man," John B. Bogart wrote, "that is not news, because it happens so often. But if a man bites a dog, that is news." So it goes with rappers. That folks like T.I. get busted before receiving an award happens so routinely that it almost passes unnoticed and therefore hardly constitutes news. That a rapper actually manages to get himself to an awards show without being arrested or, worse, shooting somebody or being shot at, now that's news.